S32.E11: Run On Your Tippy Toes

[MartyQui]

1 hour ago, blackwing said:

As for the tasks themselves, I know the high heel race is apparently a local thing, but did anyone else find it sexist / sexual orientationist?  This task very much favoured women and gay men

Um, it favored gay men?  Unless you assume all gay men spend their time in drag, I don’t think so.  And I don’t know too many women who race in heels.

[After7Only]

2 hours ago, chaifan said:

I would have at least liked to have seen Gary & DeAngelo re-reading the clue, to see if they realized what the other teams did that they were all doing wrong, and give it at least a few more tries before taking the penalty.  At a certain point they're right - blind guessing isn't going to do it and they'd be there forever, or at least until Phil came to them.  But this is like the truck challenge with the horn - every team didn't read their clue carefully.  You'd think after 5-6 wrong guesses they'd thing hmmm, maybe we missed a direction, let's reread the clue. 

 

Given Gary & DeAngelo got 3 out of 4 right on their first guess.  I think they likely did read the clue correctly to start.   But after that they got caught up randomly trying things and trying to figure out what the others who were working together were doing.   

 

[blackwing]

23 minutes ago, MartyQui said:

Um, it favored gay men?  Unless you assume all gay men spend their time in drag, I don’t think so.  And I don’t know too many women who race in heels.

It definitely favoured the two particular gay men on the show... Will and James were positively giddy about getting to run a race in heels.  I think Will even talked about how he has heels at home but his were stillettos.  James did very well with the running.  And they laughed about how guys like Gary and DeAngelo were going to be forced to do the same. 

So yes, these two particular gay men were obviously very comfortable walking around in heels.  I've never worn heels and I imagine that none of the other men (except for apparently Chee) have either.  I would think it would be difficult to get used to walking around in them, let alone running.  So those who are at least comfortable wearing heels (women and Will/James) would have an advantage.

Edited December 10, 2020 by blackwing

[Tango64]

What a crappy episode of a crappy season.

Spoon-fed transportation directly to a guy in the intersection who hands them a clue. 

A lame task of collecting horse feed items from tables that are just set up for them to grab, no figuring out where or what to get, how to pay for it, talking to a vendor, etc. 

Wasting Manila by only showing traffic and Chinatown.

But finally a task that is truly challenging! Let's see see the teams struggle for as long at it takes. Might be hours and hours before they figure it out! Then the alliance fucks it all up.

I've liked Gary & DeAngelo despite their part in the alliance, and initially I was sympathetic to DeAngelo's bitterness at the end. But then I remembered he offered to work with the others at that task, so he would have been pefectly happy if some other team had been the one screwed over by the others. Hoisted on your own petard there, buddy.

And I was disappointed that Gary and DeAngelo chose to just quit and ride out the two-hour penalty. It's not like it was some physical task that took a long time and there was no way to catch up with the others. They could have been successful with the next try. When they were playing football and were down by 7 in the last few minutes of the game, I wonder if they ever said, "Geez, we've tried every play we can think of. We can't win. Let's just quit and rest while the other team finishes."

And the giddy gloating of the three teams at the mat.... ugh.

 

[bankerchick]

Totally forgot the episode was on.  Like many of you, I have been a fan since Season 1.  I even went to 2 TARcons in NYC over the years, but this year for the first time, I just didn't care about the show or any of the racers.  This was because the boyfriends were jerks and the alliance was formed right at the beginning.

While it sounds like D'Angelo was upset about the alliance and teams not sharing info with him, one of the things I disliked most about this season was the whipped cream pie episode, where D'Angelo specifically told everyone there except the nerd team about what would happen when they entered the tent with the pie.  He even made a comment about one of the teams in the alliance not being there yet so he couldn't share the info with them.  So, alliances are fine as long as you are an integral part I guess.

 

[blackwing]

2 minutes ago, Tango64 said:

And I was disappointed that Gary and DeAngelo chose to just quit and ride out the two-hour penalty. It's not like it was some physical task that took a long time and there was no way to catch up with the others. They could have been successful with the next try. When they were playing football and were down by 7 in the last few minutes of the game, I wonder if they ever said, "Geez, we've tried every play we can think of. We can't win. Let's just quit and rest while the other team finishes."

Well, if they were only down 7, then yes, there's always a chance of a Hail Mary or last minute heroics so you don't give up.  But to me, this was more like they were down 28 points with 2 minutes left on the clock.  The possibility of them surviving was practically zero.  All three of the other teams finished the task and left.  I'm not sure if they knew that there were no other tasks left before the pit stop, but it made sense considering the toughness of the task that it was the end of the leg.  The pit stop was a location they already knew and had been to.  So there was almost no chance of catching up.  In addition, they had been working at this for a while and had no idea what they were doing wrong.

I can't blame them for taking the penalty, it was almost in a sense like it was a protest against the injustice of the situation.  And why expend effort on something they were struggling with and probably wouldn't have gotten without some guidance?

[shura]

16 minutes ago, blackwing said:

I've never worn heels and I imagine that none of the other men (except for apparently Chee) have either.

Yes, by the way, what was that about?  I am not judging, it's all the same to me, but I am curious.  Is this something he and Hung do to spice things up?  And then, a couple of episodes ago, they were talking about how their whole family has a whole fetish for the Travelosity roaming gnomes...  They seem like an interesting family, I almost wish the season was longer so I could learn more...

Edited December 10, 2020 by shura

[Tango64]

Down 28 with 2 minutes left, you still don't walk off the field and head to the locker room. Of course, you're just going through the motions until time runs out, but you have to maintain some dignity in finishing it out. 

I'd rather be going through the  motions of completing the task, probably without any urgency, and have Phil come tell me the leg is over, than lie down and take a nap.

That season where Phil had to go find a team in the dark as they were hunting for a needle in a haystack and tell them it was over, I at least gave the team props for trying. I guess it's a sportsmanship, personal pride thing for me and not just the practicality of whether they could catch up.

But then again, the whole spirit of racing was abandoned in this season, so maybe the point is moot.

[mbluecpa]

1 hour ago, blackwing said:

As for the tasks themselves, I know the high heel race is apparently a local thing, but did anyone else find it sexist / sexual orientationist?  This task very much favoured women and gay men. 

It definitely would not have favored this gay man.  But it did give Will the chance to voice over that he has a pair of six-inch stilettos.  I think the task was intended as comedic for the viewers as seeing a guy built like Gary try to run in heels might be funny (though, as either Riley or Maddison pointed out, might also equal an orthopedic injury).  I believe it was DeAngelo who made a passing mention of the run being 500 meters, so not a real race-affecting task since it could be done in five minutes even at a very slow trot.

[sara416]

13 hours ago, Door County Cherry said:

 

 

So the penalty was two hours.  I wonder how long they did that task.  If I were Gary and D'Angelo, I think I might've gambled with the penalty earlier once I realized we were the odd team out.  Especially given how frustrating the task was proving to be.  It would've thrown a wrench in that alliance because it would have created a time limit before they were all racing against one another again.  Then the question would become whether or not another team opted to take the penalty or if they'd all continue to try to solve it.  

The strategy was there.  

 

 

That was the exact thought I had. They took that penalty way too late. It seemed like that task was taking forever and if they would have strategically taken the penalty earlier they could have been ahead. Boston Rob did that on the season he ran and it definitely worked to his advantage. 

[Stardancer Supreme]

Well... I'm not so mad at the outcome when it turned out to be another reason why RACERS MUST READ THE CLUE.  This season was the most guilty of not going back to the clue once you were wrong THE FIRST TIME.  I wonder how long this particular challenge went on?

I was also hoping that Phil would have penalized the final 3 in some way for helping each other. 

I guess I'll root for Hung and Chee; they are the least offensive of the Final 3 alliance.

When TAR comes back, this needs to be addressed and alliances need to be eliminated from the game.

[Netfoot]

3 hours ago, shura said:

It's simply rational - you fight as long as there is a chance to win...

Which exists right up to when Phil says "...you have been eliminated from The race."

2 hours ago, blackwing said:

I know the high heel race is apparently a local thing, but did anyone else find it sexist / sexual orientationist?

In a word: No.

[Door County Cherry]

3 hours ago, toodywoody said:

If TAR would stop with the spoon fed everyone on the same flight to begin with,  it would not even out the playing field for everyone. Instead whoever gets to the airport first gets the best flight out, second gets the second best and so on, that way when everyone arrives not everyone will be there and have them drive themselves more, that always messes up someone and let's another team in the back catch up. 

I hated when they had separate flights and they had to negotiate for the "best" flight. Maybe what they can do is just remove the flights from the legs themselves now that, for security and production reasons, they all take the same flight.

Instead, once they land, they can do what they do at the start of each leg...i.e. give the team that came in first a head start after each flight instead of before the flight.  

2 hours ago, blackwing said:

Agreed, as a viewer, it was thoroughly uninteresting watching teams get frustrated and just randomly throw cases on the ground.  It would have been much better watching teams use logic and deduction and figure things out methodically rather than randomly.  Really poor task design.

 

Eventually, that's what the alliance did. It wasn't until after they did all the permutations that they realized they needed to go back and read the clue again. 

1 hour ago, blackwing said:

So those who are at least comfortable wearing heels (women and Will/James) would have an advantage.

Every year the race has challenges that favor skills one team has and another doesn't.   Will and James happened to look the most comfortable running in heels.  I'd argue, however, that D'Angelo and Gary are two former NFL players.  NFL players are known to have to be able to sprint and be fast.  Therefore, both of those teams had advantages in this challenge.  They were just different kinds of advantages.  Only in practice was it able to be determined what advantage counted more. 

Madison and Riley, professional athletes, also appeared to do well on that challenge.  

[iMonrey]

I actually liked Gary and DeAngelo from the beginning, but DeAngelo's reaction on the finish mat was poor sportsmanship, and it was extremely disappointing and disheartening to hear him say he's sorry he did the race. Think of how many people would have loved to have this opportunity, let alone making it all the way to the penultimate episode. I don't care how butt hurt DeAngelo felt about the betrayal of the other teams or whatever hard feelings he had. By his own admission he has the money to pay for a trip like this himself and he took a spot in this race that so many would love to have. His sense of entitlement makes me wonder what kind of career he had in the NFL. 

I don't get all the fury over the alliance anyway. I think this would have been the final four even without it. The teams that have been eliminated along the way didn't get cut because of the alliance so much as they did because they were weaker racers. Gary and DeAngelo were helped by that alliance until they weren't so it strikes me as hypocritical to cry about it now.

I don't hate any of the final three. I think Maddison and Riley have been the strongest team and the most consistent, although it was James and Will and Hung and Chee who figured out that map thing and had to clue the Beard Bros in. They've all won legs so it's going to be a real crap shoot. Unfortunately, final legs too often boil down to whoever makes it out of the gate first.

I think overall this has been a good season in terms of casting and challenges. I really don't get all the teeth gnashing and pearl clutching over the alliance.

[chaifan]

YMMV, but my complaint about the alliance isn't really "pearl clutching", as in "oh, no, how dare they do something so dastardly!"  It's that it made for boring TV.  Occasional short term alliances are fine - they're good strategy and they suit particular moments.  And, as I've said before, for Will & James, the alliance was good strategy - it did exactly what they intended it to do.  It got them into the top 5, then top 4 and now top 3.  But as a viewer, ugh.  Boring. 

[Guest]

1 hour ago, shura said:

1 hour ago, blackwing said:

I've never worn heels and I imagine that none of the other men (except for apparently Chee) have either.

Yes, by the way, what was that about?  I am not judging, it's all the same to me, but I am curious.  Is this something he and Hung do to spice things up?  And then, a couple of episodes ago, they were talking about how their whole family has a whole fetish for the Travelosity roaming gnomes...  They seem like an interesting family, I almost wish the season was longer so I could learn more...

I thought Chee was kidding there. It seemed like he was talking about how he had never run in heels and threw in a quick "well I've walked in them, just never run" as a joke. I thought I sensed a twinkle in his and Hung's eyes when he said it.

 

 

But maybe that twinkle was just them remembering some good times XD

[Suzysite]

I'm sorry to say that for the first time ever I won't be watching the finale.   If by some chance Will and James win I would be forced to put my foot through the screen and I have already spent a bundle on Christmas, so a new TV isn't in the budget.

[watch2much]

I, too, have been a loyal watcher since season 1.  for all the reasons previously stated I hated the alliances, too.  Not only did it make for boring watching, but it eliminated some of the more interesting teams early.  some of them might have been able to get better.  granted the blondes didn't despite so many chances but they were at least fun to watch.  and I agree the NFL were fine taking the advantages of the alliances when they were in it.  However, the deal was that after 5 all would be basically on their own.  so it was understandable that they asked for help from the only other team at the challenge...which was normal during all the seasons....and then to see the others have conspired against you....especially now knowing they had a final 2 with the beard brothers, I can understand the frustration.  I wish D'Angelo had expressed it better but I would have more sympathy for him had they been running on their own throughout the race.  the outrage from multiple sources about the hate of alliances hopefully will be taken into account if and when there's another season.

also, DeAngelo made some bad moves during the race--i.e. making the tiles with watching the demo...and all of them still not reading the clue!!!

Edited December 10, 2020 by watch2much

[illdoc]

Re: The 2-hour penalty. My mom and I were watching and decided if the penalty was only 2 hours, we would have taken it immediately. Not as a strategic move, but because (a) we only recognized 2 of the songs (b) had no idea where one of those two was played (knew "Day-O"), (c) have no idea what order the countries were visited (although I suppose we might have kept notes on the country order) and (d) have no idea what flag goes with what country (unless it actually said "Germany" under the German flag, which I don't think it did). So we would have known that there was no way for us to do the challenge and the penalty would have been the best move for us.

[BarneySays]

12 hours ago, Hera said:

I'm not surprised by the final three. Will/James, Hung/Chee, and Riley/Maddison have been running the three highest mean leg placements since Leg 3.

It's not possible to get an accurate read of performance when there was so much propping up of alliance teams who were flailing. 

 

12 hours ago, ByaNose said:

I’m guessing the boyfriends will win solely based on the edit and airtime.

The only hope on this point is that in the season with the insufferable green hat guy he got 90% of the air time, only to suffer a royal comeuppance later.  It was small comfort, but something.

[lilysmom]

I think they didn't take the 2 hour penalty right away because everyone was struggling the same way. It was truly anyone"s game at that point, and until the beards shared the correct answer with the other two teams and De and Gary had their epiphany, it was too late.

[One Imaginary Girl]

I wonder if DeAngelo's reaction at the mat wasn't just because of this leg but some residual feelings from the previous leg, when he messed up the tile-making task by not paying sufficient attention to the instructions.  Maybe he was still beating himself up about it, or Gary had been giving him an earful off-camera.  You would think they'd have learned that lesson and been more careful reading clues afterward.

[chaifan]

I think by now teams know to learn/keep track of things like country flags, order of countries visited and things like that, knowing that most final challenges will invoke some sort of memory test.  And I think I'm pretty good at spotting things that might be included on those challenges - like realizing that every greeter has had some sort of hat/headdress, and thinking, oh, it will be match the hat to the country, or whatever.  But I'll admit, the songs threw me.  Other than Day-o, I wouldn't have recognized any other ones.  It never even hit me that there were so many episodes involving music.  So I'm not sure if I would have survived that task, or been able to get 2 flags in place and had to keep guessing as to the others. 

All that being said, given that was the final 4 challenge, they better do something really really difficult for the last leg.  If they go back to "count out 1,000 poker chips", this will be the final straw on the 2020 suckfest. 

 

[shura]

1 hour ago, Netfoot said:

Which exists right up to when Phil says "...you have been eliminated from The race."

That’s hope.  Unless it’s a NEL, the chance to win is gone when the second-to-last team checks in.  And for practical purposes, it’s gone even at some earlier point in time.

1 hour ago, iMonrey said:

I actually liked Gary and DeAngelo from the beginning, but DeAngelo's reaction on the finish mat was poor sportsmanship, and it was extremely disappointing and disheartening to hear him say he's sorry he did the race. Think of how many people would have loved to have this opportunity, let alone making it all the way to the penultimate episode. I don't care how butt hurt DeAngelo felt about the betrayal of the other teams or whatever hard feelings he had. By his own admission he has the money to pay for a trip like this himself and he took a spot in this race that so many would love to have.

He only took someone else’s spot as much I as did when I was hired for my job. They all were cast by TAR to attract viewers and advertising dollars.  Yes, I am grateful to my employer, I suppose, but they hired me because they needed me, not because they decided to be kind and generous.  So I don’t see why I should be eternally grateful and never speak up if I don’t like something.  I can disagree with the form DeAngelo expressed his frustration in, but to paint him as ungrateful and entitled is a bit much, imo.

[sara416]

Phil said that the race in high heels is the only one in the world, but I thought about a fundraiser that I had read about where men walk in high heels to raise money to combat sexual violence. It's not a race, per se, but it isn't like that is the only time men wear heels for a cause. 

https://www.walkamileinhershoes.org/

[aghst]

I don't think this season was the first time there were alliances or cliques.

It's just that these teams made it very explicit on their on camera interviews and kept it from the other teams.

But there have always been cliques and I recall teams expressing preference for racing with this other team or that because they enjoyed hanging out together or whatever.

I don't know if that was the case this season.  Doesn't seem like these 3 teams would necessarily gravitate towards each other socially but they really did help each other out, make sure they were the last 3.

So not too different from what other teams have done.  Maybe they took it farther and was overt about it on camera more than teams in previous seasons.

[BarneySays]

1 hour ago, iMonrey said:

I don't get all the fury over the alliance anyway. I think this would have been the final four even without it. The teams that have been eliminated along the way didn't get cut because of the alliance so much as they did because they were weaker racers.

This is simply an assertion that can never be proved.  That is precisely why there is so much "fury over the alliance"- because it deprived viewers (and the other teams) of knowing what the result would have been without the outrageous assistance they provided each other throughout the entire race.  They were spared of foolish brain freezes and race fatigue by the assist of the others. 

 

2 hours ago, blackwing said:

I've never worn heels and I imagine that none of the other men (except for apparently Chee) have either.

Shades of Ernie and whatsherface and their ladyboy past.

As for reading the clue, it is my recollection that Gary was vigilant about reading the clues closely throughout the race- and observing the demonstrations.  It seems clear that they did read the clue properly, but simply could not identify the fourth country.  If DeAngelo had to do that last task on his own, they'd have taken up residence in Manila while DeAngelo goes out every morning to try to solve the task. 

As for taking the penalty, the Law of Subway Waiting would come into play.  The longer you wait for a train, the more committed you are to staying put because- surely one will come soon?!  Anyway, if they had taken the penalty, the coven- if they knew about it (which they would have to do)- would have only openly helped each other sooner. 

[survivinmt]

I love this show - have always loved it. I will still watch it.

However: flight drama - over, navigation - all but non-existent, pitting teams against each other to see strengths/weaknesses - voided by alliances, tricky tasks that require attention to detail, mostly in the clue-reading -- ding, ding, ding -- oh wait! No one does that.

So now it is just watch people run around and do weird things and make cliques. Bummer.

[survivinmt]

What part of the costume-wearer's body were racers poking at when they were reaching for clues in the lions' mouths? 

"Damn, right in the eye again!"

Edited December 10, 2020 by survivinmt
spelling - typo

[bunnyface]

12 minutes ago, aghst said:

I don't think this season was the first time there were alliances or cliques.

It's just that these teams made it very explicit on their on camera interviews and kept it from the other teams.

But there have always been cliques and I recall teams expressing preference for racing with this other team or that because they enjoyed hanging out together or whatever.

 

The Six-Pack or the Back-Pack or whatever they called themselves, which was also awful.  I specifically remember Mary losing her mind when the Cho's didn't stop and wait for her the way she thought they should.  They realized they needed to Raaaace.  

[GaT]

12 hours ago, aghst said:

Also when they do memory tasks don't they usually tell them how many items they got wrong?  In this one they had no idea how many they missed but the Beards methodically knew at least two of answers.

I was wondering about this too, we never saw the guy telling anyone how many they had wrong or which ones they were, so how did everyone know? And why wouldn't they show us that?

[blackwing]

5 minutes ago, GaT said:

I was wondering about this too, we never saw the guy telling anyone how many they had wrong or which ones they were, so how did everyone know? And why wouldn't they show us that?

I think they knew because those two were so obviously easy... the steel drum song Day-O from Trinidad and the circus clown music from Colombia.  And they were positive they had those two right.  The other two (garbage orchestra from Paraguay and orchestra from the painting task in France I think) were less familiar.  I honestly don't even remember music from the painting task, maybe it was at the point when they were bringing the people to the judge?

I think it was poor that Germany was an option.  The Detour there was a choice of either the singing chicken dance or the beer yoga.  The singing chicken dance obviously had music.  But I don't think the beer yoga did.  Unless the chicken dance song played in the background at the beer yoga, I think the fact that this case was included in the list of available cases would have been patently unfair to the teams that chose beer yoga (Gary/D, Hung/Chee, brothers).  This likely contributed to Gary and DeAngelo's confusion... they were probably thinking "but there was no music in Germany, but maybe there was at the other Detour choice".  Likewise, Will/James could have immediately thought "that wasn't the song so Germany is not correct, but what if the other Detour had a different song".

I guess there may have been more detailed instructions in the Clue... "these songs were heard on either a Route Marker or Roadblock task, they were not heard at any Detour task".  But that's probably hoping too much.

[Gummo]

I don't remember any other alliance betraying the spirit of the race as blatantly as the Mine 5 during the rappel-"sauerkraut" challenge, when a bunch of teams that would have had to do it over & over again to get it right, or even to figure out what the challenge was, were literally handed the answer by Hung. How that wasn't against the rules and earn a penalty for her and every other team involved I'll never understand.

But it was that point that it became clear that this alliance wasn't about helping each other race, it was about avoiding the race altogether.

And just to keep this post on-topic episode-wise: Hey, Deangelo, bittercakes much??

[weightyghost]

It could be argued that even if the alliance wasn't a thing, it would have still resulted in this end - Hung/Chee and the boyfriends may have read the clue earlier if they weren't caught up in the beards 'everyone take an option' plan. Then it would have been down to the beards and footballers and assuming the footballers knew ~in the order of the race~ and the beards knew the flags - the beards would have most likely finished first even if the two other teams screamed READ YOUR CLUE as they left. 

I agree alliances on this show suck. But it is a part of it, more or less. What I dislike is someone throwing their wealth in the face of millions who would kill to get this experience. 

[chaifan]

2 hours ago, After7Only said:

Given Gary & DeAngelo got 3 out of 4 right on their first guess.  I think they likely did read the clue correctly to start.   But after that they got caught up randomly trying things and trying to figure out what the others who were working together were doing.   

 

I just rewatched this part.  Early on, you can hear Gary say "we have to line them up in the order they play them".  Which was wrong.  They had to be lined up in the order of countries visited.  And then one of the Beards said the same thing about a minute later.  By the time the 3 teams were teaming up, they were still talking in terms of "songs played" as the order to put them in. 

Gary & DeAngelo were the first shown to have 3/4 right - they had the first 3 right, but put Germany in last place, instead of France.  But it wasn't their first time.  After that they completely lost it - putting T/T in the middle (which anyone knew wasn't right - it had to be first since it was the first leg).  Because of that, I don't think they knew at that point the order had to be "countries visited", not "songs played", otherwise they never would have switched out T/T as #1 spot.  Strangely enough, just as the 3 teams were figuring out the order, Gary & DeAngelo played the exact same combination (putting Germany last instead of France) again getting 3/4 right. 

[survivinmt]

Also, the alliance wasn't even smart within their alliance. Hung/Chee or Will/James should have made sure they did the right thing and THEN told the Beards. I want the Beards to win so I liked how it worked out, but the Beards benefitted the most from never reading their clue. So the others are so strategically challenged they don't really deserve to win. I am guessing that by the time they figured it out they were all so excited to tell the next alliance-member up to try it, even though keeping it to themselves until AFTER getting it correct themselves would have been much smarter.

[Chicago Redshirt]

So assuming TAR survives (which I think it will...despite this season having been a clunker), I would like Gary to have a place whenever they do their next All-Star season. He was smart, funny, strong and into it. D'Angelo, as much as I might like him, was not a particularly good racer. The orchestra task was one of the few that he was sort of OK on, and then he was actively bad on such tasks as the tiles last week and at least a couple others but I'm blanking on. I honestly think that if Gary had picked an average NFL team mate or even random person from his personal life, they would have done better. 

[Twopper]

2 hours ago, Door County Cherry said:

I hated when they had separate flights and they had to negotiate for the "best" flight. Maybe what they can do is just remove the flights from the legs themselves now that, for security and production reasons, they all take the same flight.

Instead, once they land, they can do what they do at the start of each leg...i.e. give the team that came in first a head start after each flight instead of before the flight.  

I think they should corral them when they land and let the team that came in first leave the airport first.  Then the remaining teams could leave at varying intervals.  Not quite sure how that would work, but I am sure they could figure it out. 

I guess I may prefer Hung and Chee for the win. My husband was in the hall and overheard their names as "Tongue and Cheek."  Of the three teams, I liked them the most at first.  I want the boyfriends to be second---so close and yet so far.  I think they would hate second more than third place.

I have watched this show since it started and hate to imagine their may never be another season. 

While this season has not been  my favorite, I am hanging in for the final episode as it is in New Orleans where I lived for a number of years.

[Chicago Redshirt]

34 minutes ago, Twopper said:

I think they should corral them when they land and let the team that came in first leave the airport first.  Then the remaining teams could leave at varying intervals.  Not quite sure how that would work, but I am sure they could figure it out. 

I like the idea and it's fairly straightforward. Just set it up that the first to arrive may leave immediately, while 2nd place has to wait 5 minutes, 3rd 10, and so on and so forth. You would lose the gaggle of racers trying to get airport taxis at the same time, but you would give good teams somewhat of an advantage while letting unfortunate teams still have a reasonable opportunity to catch up based on better racing or just luck. 

Best of all, I would no longer want to yell at Phil when he says "So and so is the first to depart for X."

This is untrue, Phil! You are full of lies! They are all literally leaving at the same time for X. Why you gotta play me like that, Phil?

[HurricaneVal]

Clearly, there were no winners last night.   The alliance members didn't acquit themselves very well, that was some very poor work at the memory challenge, and the overt rejection of Team NFL and celebration of their loss was just rude.  That said, DeAngelo didn't acquit himself very well with his behavior on the mat, or with his apparent doubling down on social media.  And with all that said...we, the viewers, didn't win either with that shitshow of an episode.

That was also not a very good memory challenge.  I don't mind that it was diabolical with having to know the flags of the countries and have them in the correct race-chronological order and recognize the locations of the music from the tasks.  That all had a really high degree of difficulty, especially since they only got a binary yes/no answer and no black or white peg clues as you might get when playing Mastermind.  What I minded was the songs were rendered nearly unrecognizable by the rock band. 

Even the extremely familiar "Day-O" song was a bit muddled to my ear when played in that context.  The only one that was absolutely crystal clear was the "circus song" that played incessantly in the background during the tightrope task.  I have a fairly good musical ear, and the other two pieces of music from the painting task and the trash orchestra task were incomprehensible to me.  As much as I love the cause and how much fun the kids were having, the upcycled trash orchestra were fairly discordant in their rendition of whatever piece of music they were playing, and then that piece of music was further unidentifiable in the rock band cover rendition.  For the match the painting task, the orchestra playing in the background was just exactly that for me--total background filler music, and nothing to pay a lot of attention to.  And really, nothing all that special.  It seemed to me that neither the Paraguay nor France music was a piece of well-known classical music like Beethoven's Fifth or Ninth, or Vivaldi's Four Seasons, or Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker or 1812 Overture etc., something that nearly everyone has heard at one point in their life either on TV, in a movie, in a radio ad....  (I'll be quite embarrassed if someone here identifies those pieces as extremely famous...but my assertion they were either discordantly played or played in the deep background still stands.)

Not everybody is musical.  As Gary demonstrated so very, very clearly with his steel pan debacle.  😆  Identifying the same piece of music from different contexts--full formal orchestra vs. jazzed up rock band--would be very difficult for a lot of people.  I think this was a bad task from the get-go.  Even if there were no alliance and it was every team for themselves with absolutely no collusion, it would have been a long, boring, tedious task to both do and watch.  The fact that the alliance ruined it even further by sharing information and working through the permutation matrix, and the fact that Gary and DeAngelo didn't catch-on that they needed to play a little more creatively  like immediately invoking the penalty to pressure the alliance, or immediately pressuring the alliance by shadowing them like the worst little brothers ever during the task as others upthread have suggested, made it all the worse. 

Also?  All I could think of when Gary and DeAngelo were napping through their penalty time was that desperate, tearful girl who spent hours and hours and hours looking for that clue in the task that was as near to looking for a needle in a haystack as you could literally get.  I still remember her weeping softly as she sifted through piles of hay, still seeking the clue as darkness fell, and Phil came to her out in the field to gently tell her that her team had been eliminated from the race.  I still like Gary and DeAngelo, but that girl was more of a competitor than either of the two NFLers.

Edited December 10, 2020 by HurricaneVal
grammar matters

[Tango64]

4 minutes ago, HurricaneVal said:

Also?  All I could think of when Gary and DeAngelo were napping through their penalty time was that desperate, tearful girl who spent hours and hours and hours looking for that clue in the task that was as near to looking for a needle in a haystack as you could literally get.  I still remember her weeping softly as she sifted through piles of hay, still seeking the clue as darkness fell, and Phil came to her out in the field to gently tell her team had been eliminated from the race.  I still like Gary and DeAngelo, but that girl was more of a competitor than either of the two NFLers.

Amen.

[Dobian]

12 hours ago, Diana Berry said:

I’m so bummed and been watching from the beginning.  Phil, at the beginning, practically spelled out he didn’t want an alliance on the leg.  

They should have just had 3 separate trucks and spelled out no talking amongst teams. 

Is deangelo a sore loser yes but I’m a sore viewer.  Also, been noticing the confessionals giving it away.

Seriously, I think people are making too much of the alliance on that song challenge.  Any halfway intelligent team would have wrapped that challenge up WELL before the alliance did.  When I first heard the challenge instructions, I noted right off that the songs were to be in the order of the countries they visited, so when people were sticking Germany ahead of Colombia, I knew they had it wrong.  You don't need an alliance to read a freaking clue, and this isn't the first time these idiots DIDN'T READ THE CLUE!!!  I have watched plenty of these kind of memory challenges in previous TARs where teams figured it out very efficiently all by themselves.  If the Football Team had read their clue as well and done some logical thinking, they could have beaten the Dumbo Alliance.  These teams might want to consider that by constantly relying on other teams for cheats the way a student looks over at a classmate's paper during a test, they were weakening their skills at solving these kind of challenges.  The level of play was awful.

[blackwing]

12 minutes ago, HurricaneVal said:

Also?  All I could think of when Gary and DeAngelo were napping through their penalty time was that desperate, tearful girl who spent hours and hours and hours looking for that clue in the task that was as near to looking for a needle in a haystack as you could literally get.  I still remember her weeping softly as she sifted through piles of hay, still seeking the clue as darkness fell, and Phil came to her out in the field to gently tell her that her team had been eliminated from the race.  I still like Gary and DeAngelo, but that girl was more of a competitor than either of the two NFLers.

I agree that Lena (or Kristy, I forget which one it was) was a tough competitor and refused to give up.  But that challenge was very different than the one last night.  In her challenge, it was very clear and simple.  Find a clue in a haystack and you can move on.  I believe she unrolled every haystack so she must have missed the clue the first time around.  And to make it worse, after all of the haystacks were unrolled, she had no way of knowing which ones she had unrolled versus the ones someone else unrolled so probably had to check through all of them.  But at least it was just a task that persistence would have rewarded.

In the task last night, Gary and DeAngelo clearly had no idea what they were even doing wrong.  There was no confirmation of whether they had any cases correct or not, and the other teams were working together with 6 minds as opposed to 2 (1 and a half if we discount DeAngelo).  Without any confirmation that they were getting any of it right, it seemed they may have been just randomly pulling cases.  I say this because they went from having three correct in the right order to not.  I wonder if they had determined that Trinidad and Colombia were correct.  If not, then with nine countries available, the permutations of combinations are 9 x 8 x 7 x 6 = 3,024 possible combinations.  That's a fairly impossible feat.

Add in the knowledge and disgust that the other three teams colluded against you (especially three teams that you thought you were on the same page with as to the dissolution of the five team alliance) and the fact that you know there is zero chance you will be able to catch up, and I can fully understand why they just decided to stop working on the puzzle.

[blackwing]

5 minutes ago, Dobian said:

Seriously, I think people are making too much of the alliance on that song challenge.  Any halfway intelligent team would have wrapped that challenge up WELL before the alliance did.  When I first heard the challenge instructions, I noted right off that the songs were to be in the order of the countries they visited, so when people were sticking Germany ahead of Colombia, I knew they had it wrong.  You don't need an alliance to read a freaking clue, and this isn't the first time these idiots DIDN'T READ THE CLUE!!!  I have watched plenty of these kind of memory challenges in previous TARs where teams figured it out very efficiently all by themselves.  If the Football Team had read their clue as well and done some logical thinking, they could have beaten the Dumbo Alliance.  These teams might want to consider that by constantly relying on other teams for cheats the way a student looks over at a classmate's paper during a test, they were weakening their skills at solving these kind of challenges.  The level of play was awful.

I disagree, the alliance clearly helped on that task.  Only the brothers were positive about Trinidad and Colombia, it seemed like the other two teams had no idea and were trying random combos.  The brothers were the ones to systematically write out all the combinations.  They would have gotten it on their own eventually, it was just faster when two other teams were helping with the combos.  If the brothers hadn't come up with that strategy and shared with the others then I think Will/James and Hung/Chee could have equally been randomly trying whatever.  As far as them reading the clue, they only did that AFTER they had tried every possible Trinidad/Colombia/X/Y combo with those two in the wrong order.  So that was 42 combinations that they must have tried.  Then they were puzzled as to what they had done wrong since they were convinced about Trinidad and Colombia and it was only then that they read the clue again.

[mojoween]

I’ll play devil’s advocate and say that Lena didn’t know if that was an elimination leg. Pretty sure Gary and DeAngelo knew the last team was going to be bounced.

Edited December 10, 2020 by mojoween

[Bunnyette]

I forget which season it was but a team that did really well was because they kept notes on each leg and the tasks.   I too didn’t like the mean girls tone of this episode.  What a poor example Hung & Chee are setting for their kids.

Edited December 12, 2020 by Bunnyette

[jemklb]

5 hours ago, blackwing said:

It definitely favoured the two particular gay men on the show... Will and James were positively giddy about getting to run a race in heels.  I think Will even talked about how he has heels at home but his were stillettos.  James did very well with the running.  And they laughed about how guys like Gary and DeAngelo were going to be forced to do the same. 

 

That's not unusual for any given task in the history of TAR to favor some people over others. It's pretty much a given that some people will have an easier time with a task than others.

[Netfoot]

51 minutes ago, mojoween said:

Pretty sure Gary and DeAngelo knew the last team was going to be bounced.

So what? If they had persevered, they might have solved the puzzle and been on their way in minutes. And they might have found another team sitting at the Amazing Bathmat, waiting out a penalty for some infraction, earlier in the race.

Yes, might. No certainty. But they had a chance and they just couldn't be bothered to try. These guys are professional sportsmen? Well, guess who's team they ain't never working for!

[mojoween]

True.  But they didn’t quit.  They took a penalty.  And if the other three teams tried to check in and THEY got a penalty, Gary and DeAngelo would have served their time and then checked in, if the other teams penalties were also two hours, as Gary and DeAngelo would have started their clocks first.

And I wish I never typed that out, because thinking of them sitting out their penalty and then checking in first is a scenario I would have been delighted to see.

[Bluesky]

8 hours ago, Tango64 said:

And the giddy gloating of the three teams at the mat.... ugh.

 

They were like a group of teens who got the answers to the test beforehand and bragged that they got the highest scores.   
The part I hated the most when they all just yelled out the word scramble answer, sourkraut (I can’t even spell it and spellcheck is not correcting).  That would have been an interesting challenge.